"For the first time in history, our law has removed everything that denied women rights. But the important thing is not the law. In the cities and industrial areas this law on complete freedom of marriage is doing all right, but in the countryside it all too frequently remains a dead letter."

A compilation of key works by Leon Trotsky, written between 1904 and the end of April 1917, about the character and tasks of the Russian Revolution.

Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk was written at the Brest-Litovsk peace conference a mere few months after the Bolsheviks had come to power. It gives an excellent introduction to the history of the Russian Revolution.

 Written: the Decision—December 30, 1917 (January 12, 1918); the Addendum—January 1 (14), 1918.

"A person who holds an important post in the trade union movement and is debauching that movement with shoddy bourgeois ideas..."

"The revolutionary movement of the Ukrainian working classes for the transfer of all power to the Soviets is assuming ever greater proportions in the Ukraine itself and holds out the prospect of an early victory over the Ukrainian bourgeoisie."

"The strength of the proletariat and the peasantry allied to it grows with the resistance of the bourgeoisie and its retainers. As their enemies, the exploiters, step up their resistance, the exploited mature and gain in strength; they grow and learn and they cast out the “old Adam” of wage-slavery."

"Apart from the purchase and distribution of products, every consumers’ society shall engage in the sale of local products."

"When that Kerenskyof yours reintroduced capital punishment at the front, that was not terror, gentlemen, was it?"

Draft Decision for C.P.C. on 'The Irregular Actions of People’s Commissar for Justice I. Z. Steinberg and Member of the Board of the People’s Commissariat for Justice V. A. Karelin'.

"Only the Soviets of the Ukrainian poor peasants, workers and soldiers could set up a power in the Ukraine under which clashes between fraternal peoples would be impossible."

"The Council of People’s Commissars deems it necessary to declare that these are absolutely false rumours, deliberately and maliciously spread by the enemies of the Soviets of Peasants’, Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies."

Delivered on 18 December, 1917.

"Should we at once undertake intensive agitation against the Germans’ annexationist policy and for a revolutionary war?"

Written in December 16 (29), 1917.

Written December28 (15), 1917.

"The adoption of the decree is urgent, otherwise opposition and sabotage will ruin us."

"The workers and office employees of the nationalised enterprises must exert every effort and adopt extraordinary measures to improve the organisation of the work, strengthen discipline and raise the productivity of labour."

 "Only by joining efforts with you can we overcome the disorder and strengthen the power of the workers, soldiers and peasants. Soviet power has no other support than that of the broad working masses."

Draft Decision for the C.P.C. onStaff Salaries in Government Offices, written December 13 (26), 1917.